


Dust Up

by jadztone



Series: Sherlock Nanowrimo [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Herbal Soothers, Kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-23 00:23:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11391495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadztone/pseuds/jadztone
Summary: Mrs. Hudson does some dusting in 221B.  Since she's not their housekeeper, it's really just a chance for some snooping.  But it's not a typical day at Baker Street without at least a little intrigue.





	Dust Up

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a series of stories I wrote for Nanowrimo and posted on my tumbler page, sherlock-nanowrimo.tumblr.com. I was doing a story a day, generally leaving them open-ended if I wanted to add on to the story later in the month. The ones that I did add on to will be posted on AO3 as multiple chapters. They will all be posted as complete, with no expectation that I will ever revisit them. I haven't changed them from the way they were posted on tumblr, they have their issues, but I like to think of them as diamonds in the rough. The stories contain multiple crossovers with other fandoms, and multiple ships.

Mrs. Hudson let out a weary sigh.  She was constantly telling her boys that she wasn’t their housekeeper.  Yet nevertheless she always found herself keeping their house.  Well, technically speaking it was her house.  The more she thought about it, the more she realized she really wasn’t their housekeeper.  She was still keeping her own house, she just had two boys helping to untidy it.

She didn’t mind, really. She never did have children of her own. And they were so sweet to her. John, well he really didn’t have a clue about her.  But he meant well.  His protectiveness of her was second only to Sherlock’s.  Sherlock did have a clue about her.  Oh my, but he saw right through her.  She loved him for it, but was frequently mortified.  There were just too many things a young man shouldn’t know about a woman of a certain age.  But given that he knew, she felt more like herself around him.  She didn’t have to pretend.  People always wanted old women to be a particular way.  She was that way to a certain extent, but there was more to her.  She was clever.  She was capable of things.  That she was underestimated worked to her advantage with some people, and that included John.  

Mrs. Hudson moved around John’s room, dusting and straightening as she went.  She opened up a drawer and peered inside.  It was a jumble of socks.  She slid it shut and opened another.  Ah, the catch-all drawer.  Let’s see what she’d catch today.  She rummaged a little and pulled out a newspaper clipping.  It was an article about a case that Sherlock solved, and it had a picture of John and Sherlock looking at each other.  It was very sweet, they looked so diffident. Some might say it was because they were unsure about having their picture taken together, but Mrs. Hudson was quite sure it was all about what was unspoken between them.  She set the article aside and rummaged some more. She pulled out another slip of paper. This time it was a letter in an envelope.  Jackpot! This was new.  She checked the postage. Yep, it was after the last time she tidied John’s drawers.  Oooh, his drawers.  She chuckled to herself.  Cheeky.

Mrs. Hudson perched on the edge of John’s bed and took out the letter.  She felt no compunction about reading someone else’s personal correspondence.  If she had better scruples, she’d probably be dead by now.  It was snooping about in her husband’s personal space that led to her discovery of his activities, and snooping that unearthed the proof she provided to Sherlock.  It was a lesson to her that snooping was essential.  It saved lives.  She snooped because she cared.

She glanced at the return address and saw that it was from John’s sister, Harriet.  Carefully, she unfolded the letter.

“Dear John (ha!),

I’m writing this letter instead of an e-mail, but not because I’ve forgotten what year it is. I’m not that far gone.  I am far gone enough that they’ve switched off my internet service.  It’s okay, I’m turning over a new leaf.  I’m writing to let you know that I’ve met someone.  I’d use her internet to send you an e-mail, but she doesn’t have it either. She’s eschewed [Mrs. Hudson noted that this word was written over several times, as if she couldn’t remember how it was spelled] such worldly things as internet and computers.  She’s sitting next to me right now, praising my ability to adapt to her point of view.  Her name is Meredith.  She is an angel from heaven.

I need a favor, dear brother.  Meredith is in a spot of trouble and I’m sure if you said something to that friend of yours – the cop one, not the amateur detective one – everything would be cleared up just fine.   She was involved in some sort of scheme to make a bit of money, but one of the gents involved turned out to be shady.  Beliles, I think his name was.  He does insurance policies.  

Anyway, I hope you can help. Come around for drinks and meet Merry. That’s what I call her, we’re Harry and Merry! I know you will love her.  Address is on the envelope.

Ta!  -Harry”

Mrs. Hudson sucked in her breath, unable to tear her eyes from the name Beliles.  She couldn’t believe it.  It couldn’t be him.  Couldn’t be that awful man who had sent Mr. Hudson down his path of destruction. What were the odds?  Insurance policies was how it had started for her husband.  With trembling fingers, she put the letter back in the envelope and then slipped it into the pocket of her pinny.  She would show Sherlock.  He’d know what to do.

Mrs. Hudson stood up and half-heartedly swept her duster around the chest of drawers, but soon admitted to herself that she was too rattled for the moment to continue.  She needed a cup of tea.  And something else.  She knelt down and felt around the underside of the chest until she found what she was looking for.  A tiny rolled joint.  Back when John first moved in and still felt burdened by his war injuries, she’d found out that he sometimes indulged a little to take the edge off the pain. Once he’d discovered the healing effects of running around with Sherlock, he tried to throw away the few joints he had left.  In the trash bin of all places.  Fortunately, Mrs. Hudson found and rescued them before they were lost forever.  She put them back in their hiding place.  She was no dummy.  Too many times has Lestrade brought his men in here on the pretense of a drugs bust, all because he was in a snit over Sherlock not helping him to his satisfaction.  Mrs. Hudson wasn’t about to be caught out with marijuana in her rooms.  John was the one who bought the stuff, he’d pay the price if it gets found.

After Mrs. Hudson felt like she had sufficiently calmed down, she decided to continue with her dusting. Time for Sherlock’s room. Sherlock made a mess pretty much everywhere in the flat except his bedroom.  His bedroom was very tidy indeed.  Pointedly so.  Mrs. Hudson opened up his sock drawer, knowing before she even looked that every pair would be carefully rolled and indexed.  If she tried to see if he was hiding something, he’d know.  One time she had selected a sock bundle that seemed infinitesimally more bulgy than the others and carefully unfurled it.  As the layers unraveled, she’d been thrilled to see a piece of paper rolled in with the sock.  It turned out to be a note which said, “Put it back, Mrs. Hudson.” Cheeky.  

She strolled around Sherlock’s room, applying the duster here and there.  She flicked it over the picture on the wall of the periodic table. What does it say about a man that this is what he chooses to see when he wakes up every morning?  She once joked to him that maybe it meant he liked chemistry, and she’d given him an exaggerated wink.  He just stared at her for an uncomfortably long period of time before finally saying in a monotone, “Yes, Mrs. Hudson.  It does mean I like chemistry.”  She never mentioned any of the décor in his room again.

As she continued to dust, something caught her eye.  There was something sticking out from underneath the floor lamp.  A corner of a piece of paper.  Excited, she hurried over and tipped the lamp to the side.  She picked up the large square of thick paper and turned it over.  It was a photograph.  A picture of that woman that had agitated Sherlock so much.  She was in a very delicate position and wearing a variety of straps that did not do an adequate job of covering her up.  There was an inscription.  “Dear Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock thought you might like it if I signed this for you.  My regards, Irene Adler.”  Mrs. Hudson shook her head.  “Oh Sherlock. What a trick!  At my age!”  She leaned down and shoved the picture back under the lamp.  

Mrs. Hudson decided that she’d done quite enough dusting in Sherlock’s room, and went bustling out into the living room.  She wondered if she should take another tea break.  She decided against it.  She would need her wits about her when Sherlock came home and she told him about Harry’s letter.  She made her way down the stairs to her own modest little flat.  She went over to where she’d left the tea set on the table next to her favorite chair.  She picked up the tray and carried it to the kitchen.  To her great astonishment she saw Harry sitting at the table looking terrified and perhaps a little hungover.  Beliles was standing behind her, brandishing a gun.  Mrs. Hudson took one look at his cruel, smiling face and let out a loud, piercing scream.  The tea set slid from her nerveless hands and went crashing to the floor, smashed crockery flying everywhere.

**Author's Note:**

> I do sort of resolve this incident in my story Mince Pies. I didn't combine the two because Mince Pies is a Harry Potter crossover and this isn't.


End file.
